Hey folks, this is Max Young-Rice from the StoryCorps podcast.
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This week, tell us about a promise you kept to someone, even though it cost you.
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Each year, Kerry Turner attends his family reunion near Mount Olive, North Carolina.
Everybody's catching up on the past year's events and things like that.
This was like 2006.
Me and my brother were sitting together and I said, look at Aunt Charlotte.
She was just sitting, looking out the window, all by herself.
Carrie's Aunt Charlotte had lost two sons during the Vietnam War, Lane and Joseph Hargrove.
Carrie grew up with his older cousins.
He remembers the weekly Sunday dinners together and how they'd all run wild on the farm as kids.
Carrie was just 11 when Lane went off to war.
Lane joined the military from there straight to Vietnam in 1968.
He didn't last but a few weeks.
Joseph looked up to Lane.
He was his hero.
So Joseph joined the Marines because I don't know if you could call it revenge, but he wanted to set things right for them, killing his brother.
And we never saw Joseph again.
Lance Corporal Joseph Hargrove, along with two other Marines, went missing in action during the final battle of the Vietnam War, known today as the Mayaguez Incident.
We didn't know whether he was dead or not.
The only thing we could get was missing.
MIA.
I mean nobody had answers, other than they were accidentally left behind, which doesn't sound like the military.
You don't leave nobody behind.
And so when Carrie was at that reunion and looked at his aunt still grieving 30 years later, he decided to sit down and ask her about it.
She was a gentle, soft-spoken lady.
And we talked about what she must have gone through and never getting any answers back.
And so I made a promise to Aunt Charlotte that I'd do everything in my power to try to find out the truth.
I said, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to do something.
Kerry has dedicated his life to honoring that promise.
And in this episode we'll hear how, after years of searching, he came to finally learn what happened to his cousin.
I'm Jasmine Morris.
It's the StoryCorps podcast from NPR.
Some of the most iconic images from the end of the Vietnam War are of the fall of Saigon and the chaos of the US evacuation people climbing over each other, scrambling to get on helicopters as they took off.
But the fact is, there was one more battle, the Mayaguez incident, two weeks later.
The container ship Mayaguez today was fired on, boarded and seized by a Cambodian gunboat, and its crew of 40 Americans has apparently been taken prisoner.
The Mayaguez was a commercial vessel, and the crew were civilians.
The Marines were sent in to rescue them.
President Ford is about to address the nation on the latest developments in the American merchant ship Mayaguez.
I have now received information that the vessel has been recovered intact and the entire crew recovered has been rescued.
The forces that have successfully accomplished this mission are still under hostile fire, but are preparing to disengage.
I wish to express my deep appreciation, and that of the entire nation, to the men who participated in these operations for their valor and for their sacrifice.
This was a simple declaration of victory from the president.
But like so much about the Vietnam War, what actually happened on the ground was a total mess.
In preparation for the battle, the Marines thought the crew had been taken to a small island called Kotang.
They thought the rescue would be simple and they wouldn't meet much resistance.
But in fact an entire Cambodian battalion was there waiting for them when they approached the island via helicopter.
The first chopper moving in was shot down about 100 feet offshore.
Five minutes later, a second chopper came in and was hit.
It crash landed on the beach.
The Marines got out and took cover.
A third helicopter was also knocked down on the beach.
The Marines swarmed out.
The fight was on.
38 U.S. troops were killed and many more wounded.
And in all the confusion Kerry's cousin, Joseph Hargrove, and two Marines from his machine gun team, Gary Hall and Danny Marshall, went missing.
The Pentagon is saying that some Marines may have been left behind on the island which the Marines landed on.
The Pentagon holds out little hope for those still listed as missing.
Now three Marines were MIA after a battle that turns out was completely unnecessary.
Earlier that day, a Cambodian boat flying a white flag had approached a US Navy ship and turned over the entire crew unharmed.
So Joseph and his two team members didn't even need to be on the island in the first place.
Kerry was a high school senior at the time and he remembers that his family was told Joseph was missing.
Nothing more.
As time went on, it was something that the family more and more just didn't talk about.
There's just a memorial stone here in the cemetery at Mount Olive for Joseph, right beside Lane's grave, a short distance away, and I go by there on occasion and I know Lane's there but Joseph's not.
It just says in memory.
And I think after not hearing anything over time, the family came to the terms that he was dead.
This was the general feeling in the family.
But without proof, they really didn't know.
And when Kerry promised his Aunt Charlotte he would find that proof, he wasn't even sure where to start.
At the time, I had been praying, you know, if you'll just open the door for me, I'll do the rest.
Just tell me which way to go.
Little did I know that a year later, I'd be 30 miles off the coast of Cambodia on Koh Tang Island.
Cary wasn't exactly an experienced world traveler.
He was living in the same small town in North Carolina where he grew up.
And Kotang is a remote island that isn't exactly accessible to casual tourists.
It's three miles long and about a mile wide, most of it covered by thick jungle.
So figuring out all the details took Cary over a year.
And when he finally made it to Kotang Island...
Just being there felt like a small victory.
I remember when I took that first step on the sand, thinking, Joseph, I'm here.
I mean, you're on the other side of the world.
After 34 years of not hearing anything, sort of emotional, you know.
Carrie hoped to learn what really happened to Joseph and to find his remains and bring them home.
The military had also tried this to find the remains of the three missing Marines and the other soldiers who were killed during the battle.
They were unsuccessful.
And so was Carrie on this trip.
So a year later, he went back to try again.
This time he had a few leads and he hired a crew to dig on the island to look for Joseph's remains.
But still, no luck.
We left the island and went back home and I was talking to Aunt Charlotte saying I'm sorry, Aunt Charlotte, I failed you again.
And unfortunately, she died after my second trip.
Some people say, well, your Aunt Charlotte's dead.
Why are you still doing this?
Because they gave my word.
And I haven't fulfilled that promise.
My mother told us, if your word's no good, you have nothing.
And we live by that.
I give you my word.
I'm going to do it or die.
And then one day I get a phone call.
They said, is this Kerry Turner?
I said, yes, it is.
He said, you don't know me, but my name's Robert Vealy.
I'm 70 years old.
And before I die, I want you to know what happened to those three Marines.
More after the break.
Stay with us.
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The man who called Carrie was Robert Vealy, a former Air Force staff sergeant and one of the last people who spoke with Joseph.
During the Mayaguez incident, Vili and his team were in a plane flying near Kotang Island and they were responsible for coordinating the attack.
That meant they were in radio contact with both the troops on the island and the commanders of the operation.
Joseph and his fire team had been ordered to stay put on the island to provide cover while the last helicopter evacuating US soldiers took off to safety.
Then they waited for their turn.
That's when they called Vili.
They were requesting pickup.
He said, where are you now?
We're in the landing zone waiting for pickup.
And he asked them, why won't you on the last helicopter?
And Joseph said we were ordered to provide cover for the extraction, that once the extraction was complete they would come and pick us up.
This is where it gets murky.
Here's what Velie says happened.
He told his superiors there were still Marines on the island, but the response he got was no, everyone's accounted for.
And the rescue helicopter was still ordered to leave.
Once I got this call from Velie, I really appreciate what he had done, because it's a whole different story.
The military, they made it sound like they were cowards.
They didn't follow orders.
They abandoned their position.
And I know that won't true because I knew my cousins.
So now Carey finally understood how Joseph got left behind, but he still didn't know what happened next.
Then, in 2015, Carey's longtime interpreter told him about a former Cambodian soldier who claimed that he had shot and killed an American Marine on Khotang Island in the aftermath of the Mayaguez incident.
And that Marine fit the description of Joseph Hargrove.
At that point, I don't know if I'll ever get Joseph home, but I want the truth out.
And so I had something else to go on.
It was just like God was putting things in my lap.
So Kerry went back to Koh Tang for a third time.
And on this trip he was going to meet with the man he thought might finally have an answer for what happened to his cousin.
That man's name was Em Son, and he wasn't just any soldier.
He was a former Khmer Rouge Special Forces commander.
If you don't know about the Khmer Rouge, they were a communist group who took power in Cambodia toward the end of the Vietnam War.
They were responsible for the genocide of millions of Cambodians, and Em Son was a close associate of their leader, Pol Pot.
M. Son was also the man in charge of defending Kotang Island during the Mayaguez incident.
M. Son has one leg.
He lost it in a landmine thing and my interpreter, Noma.
He arranged for us to have a meeting with this guy.
So I was a little bit edgy.
You know I'm sitting here facing him, and first I said what we say here and do today, it don't matter, because we can't bring back Joseph.
So just put the story simple and tell what happened.
And he told me about what happened to those three Marines after Joseph and his fire team were left behind.
Now, they'd been fighting all day before and survived, and Joseph had been shot above the knee.
Somehow, during the night, Danny and Gary moves Joseph to the only fresh water hole on the island.
And then Danny and Gary went back to the shoreline in case help came.
They captured Danny and Gary about eight days after.
And they were executed on the mainland.
But back to Joseph.
These five Camaroos get up the next morning to go get some water to cook rice for breakfast.
And they hear movement, and they investigate.
And when they do, Joseph was there.
And Joseph opens up on them, kills their captain.
So they capture Joseph and carry him out to the meadow under this mango tree.
And Emson meets up with them and they tell him who Joseph had killed, and it was Emson's best friend.
So Emson shoots Joseph in the chest, goes over and shoots him in the head, and then they bury him.
It was sad, but at the same time, mixed emotions.
And probably the closest thing to an apology I've got from him son.
He said if your cousin was anything like you, a good man was killed.
I took that as a compliment, you know.
I had a guy ask me one time, why didn't you smack him?
I didn't have those kind of feelings.
I didn't harbor any ill will towards him at all.
I was just grateful he was willing to talk with me.
That sounds strange, you know, but at least I know what happened.
I might not get Joseph home, but at least we have some answers now.
That third and final trip was almost a decade after Kerry made that promise to his Aunt Charlotte Joseph's mother.
By that point he'd spent tens of thousands of dollars and traveled more than 80000 miles to find out what happened.
Sometimes you wish you didn't know the truth, but other times, even if it hurts, it still consoles you a little bit.
I mean, it's been 50 years, and they were heroes.
That's been my battle cry for the three missing Marines, Joseph, Nelson, Hargrove.
Gary Hall from Covington, Kentucky, and Danny Marshall from Waverly, West Virginia.
They should be remembered, and I want them to get their due.
Their honor needs to be redeemed.
All three of them deserve that.
And I can't say more without getting a little emotional.
You know, I'm approaching 70.
I've lived a lot longer than I have lived.
And Joseph, if he could hear me now, I'd say, I'll see you soon, because it'll come soon enough.
I don't fear it.
In fact, I look forward to it.
So I'll be able to look Joseph straight in the eye, free of any guilt or shame, knowing I've done what I could.
And I can say I've held true to Aunt Charlotte, which would mean a lot to me.
Thank you.
Lance Corporal Joseph Hargrove, Private First Class Gary Hall and Private Danny Marshall are the final casualties of the Vietnam War.
And theirs are the last three names carved in stone on the Vietnam War Memorial Wall in Washington DC.
That's all for this episode of the StoryCorps podcast.
We'd love to hear from you and our voicemail line is always open at 702-706-TALK.
This week, what's a promise that you made to someone that you had to make a sacrifice to keep?
Tell us about it in a voicemail.
That's 702-706-TALK.
This episode was produced by Judd Esty Kendall.
It was edited by Amy Drozdovska.
This podcast is produced by Max Young-Rice.
Our senior producer is Judd Esty Kendall.
Amy Drozdovska is our executive producer.
Our technical director is Jarrett Floyd.
Michael Garofalo is the chief creative officer for StoryCorps.
I'm Jasmine Morris.
Thanks for listening.
Support for this podcast comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
